And so we find ourselves in a situation where we have inserted our foot into our mouth. Granted, it could’ve been a much funnier scene if I had the time to play with it more, but to be honest this is a bit of a transition story arc. It transitions between story arcs. Also, I had just beaten a game I had been playing for over a year.

In pieces. A game I had been playing for a year in pieces. Not in a single sitting. I have a life. Or something that resembles a life.

Speaking of life, around this time every year my family and I go “camping” out at a state park in Indiana. I put “camping” in quotes because we’re in cabins with cable TV. It’s camping with cable.

However, it’s also an opportunity for more photos. Perhaps a haunted cabin story. Perhaps an Evil Dead parody. You’ll have to wait to see.

I was having a conversation with Beth about our weekend activities, and she wanted to go out and do something. And I’m telling myself I’m only 4-5 hours away from the end of this game. And I’m into it. Really into the game. The story had finally grabbed me and the gameplay had immersed me and I was the savior of the Wasteland.

So when Beth said she wanted to do this other thing, I said I wanted to finish the game. When she asked for a rationale, I broke into the rant you see above you.

But of course you can’t make a joke about recanting the plot of the game, so we use it to segue into the next page.

The conversation here is based on one I had with my girlfriend in jest. She wanted to go do something else, and in the whiniest kid voice I could muster I started talking about the epic nature of the game. And how I wanted to finish the story.

While gameplay is fun, if a game’s story draws me in I’ll play it despite any gameplay issues. Take Assassin’s Creed, for example. The first game was rife with glitches and some very limiting gameplay options. However, the story of Desmond really drew me in and I wanted to know more.

Plus, killing dudes in stealth is fun. But I digress.

The two takeaways from this page are thus:

1) Friends want to play games online, which typically lack any kind of story and basically find you running around gunning things down. This is fun for a while, but eventually the lack of emotional substance and connection to your character numbs you and interest is lost. For me, there needs to be a compelling narrative to go along with my running and gunning, and a connection to the character so I care about the actions they perform – as well as their fate when they are in danger.

2) Games are coming out much quicker than they have been for a lot of franchises, forcing players to go through a game as quickly as possible so they can trade the game in and clear shelf space for the next title they want. Possibly even within the same franchise. This isn’t how I operate at all. I like to keep my shelves adorned with the games I’ve beaten – almost like a personal trophy collection – and possibly even sometimes return to my favorite games and play them through again.

But in this instance, Scott wants to play Borderlands…especially since Borderlands 2 is coming out in a few months.

I hope you guys have a great weekend. As for me, I won’t be playing games this weekend. Instead, I’ll be hanging out with Beth as this is our one-year anniversary.

So this short arc stems from a conversation I had with myself, really. Basically, I’m one of the few people I know who likes to play a game until it’s beaten completely. They call us “completists,” apparently. IGN did a survey of gamers and found that something under 50% of players actually beat the games they buy. The game with the highest completion rate, in fact, is Heavy Rain.

In any case, until very recently I was still playing Fallout 3 – even though I’ve since gone out and purchased additional games, and started playing some of them. This game has been out for years, and I still haven’t gotten through my first play through.

Part of that is because of the game’s open-world, which is vast and begging to be explored…and I wanted to see every digital square inch of the Capital Wasteland, and all of the hidden nooks and crannies it contained. I was having so much fun exploring the world that I forgot to play the game. For about 30 hours. I found myself around level 18 (the game maxes you out at level 20, unless you buy the DLC that extends it to 30) and I hadn’t actually done anything story-wise.

But I hadn’t given the story a chance to draw me in. Instead I gave into the seductive nature of the desolate world Bethesda had created, and I wanted to save it…my way! Which meant finding every single bandit hideout, killing everything that moved, stealing all their crap, and then slowly walking back to a town and bankrupting it by selling everything I had and didn’t need.

I did this a lot in Fallout 3. And I loved every second of it.

But the purpose here is that I finally beat the game years after it came out. I sat down and told myself I was going to play any other games until this one was done and off my plate. Meanwhile, my friends are all playing Borderlands online co-op, and they want me to join.

Difficult to keep to my “don’t play any other games until this one’s done” when your friends are sending you the peer-pressure vibes.

Video Game Review: Fallout 3 (2008)Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PCDeveloper: Bethesda Game StudiosOfficial WebsitePlot: In an alternate future (that resembles the 1950s, but with sci-fi technology) the world has been plunged into a nuclear war and Washington DC has been all but obliterated. To survive, people have crammed into these underground bunkers called Vaults. You play a nameless character who grew up in Vault 101 – which, unlike the other Vaults, did not reopen after it was deemed safe to go out into the world.

You see yourself grow up briefly inside the Vault. You mother died during child birth, your friend gets picked on by the local bully, and your dad (super scientist) doesn’t get along with the Vault mayor (your best friend’s father).

On your 19th birthday, you best friend comes into your room while you’re sleeping and says that her father is coming to arrest you. Your father has somehow left the Vault, and you have to follow him out into the Wasteland. From there, the decision of how to proceed is yours. Sneak out, shoot everything that moves, give your friend the gun – how do you want to escape?

Upon exiting Vault 101, you’re greeted by the greatest video game character of all time: the environment of the Waste. DC, re-created as a post-nuclear war site, is you playground. You can proceed on missions, or just explore (which I spent most of my time doing). Ultimately, though, your goal is to find your father and what you decide to do from there will affect your game experience.

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I figured this would be an appropriate game to review for the new year (Happy New Year, by the way) because it’s a game about new beginnings – and that’s what every new year is about.

The game can be played from a first or third person perspective (I recommend first), and you make choices – as well as shoot stuff.

The neat thing about combat in this game is the VATS – which is their “VAULT-TEC ASSISTED TARGETING SYSTEM” that allows you to target specific areas on a character and attack there, based on the probability of the attack being a success. If you’re good with a weapon (and you’ll get good if you pump up your character stats), then you can even have slow motion gruesome endings to your enemies. Like slow motion decapitations by AK-47!

It’s gruesome, but also awesome.

The most fun thing about this game is the sheer size of it, and the freedom it provides. I spent hours of gameplay just exploring the Waste and killing raiding parties, stealing their stuff, and bankrupting towns by selling it all. After about 60+ hours in the game, I maxed out my level cap to 20 (if you download Brotherhood of Steel expansion this increases to 30), and and only explored about 3/8 of the whole map.

Mind you, I was taking my time and just enjoying the game. Your play through will be different. And hopefully just as enjoyable.

So Fallout: New Vegas came out as well, which is a sequel to the game. Apparently everything is just about the same, expect for the setting.

I could go on and on about this game, but what’ll really sell it is if you play it for yourself. For your Halo fans out there, please note that this is a slower-paced RPG game that has a lot of conversation and decision-making. If you just want to go killing, you can do that – but that’s not the purpose of the game.

If you don’t already own this game or it’s sequel, it’s certainly worth owning. I recommend it.